


Even fate picks its favorites

by junebugtwin



Category: RWBY
Genre: Adam Taurus Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Anxiety, Child Soldiers, F/F, Faunus still exist, Grief/Mourning, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Minor Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shock, Superheroes, Unreliable Narrator, featuring: baby blake as a runaway, ironwood is kind of a dick, like you do, who accidentally ends up becoming a supervillian?, y'know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:07:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29474448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebugtwin/pseuds/junebugtwin
Summary: “Untrained mutants are a threat to society.” He says simply, a threat plain and honest in a way he hadn’t been the rest of the conversation, resulting in a cold shudder climbing its way up her back.He gives her some papers to sign and leaves, and she manages only to stare at them for two minutes and thirty seconds before she gets out of bed, puts on her shoes, and then climbs out the window. (It was a good thing they were on the first floor)If she’d stayed, maybe she would have gotten to see a different man with a more peaceful recruitment pitch, eyes soft and sad and tired, genuinely trying to help her. But Blake would never know, because she’d hobbled out the parking lot exit before Ozpin had even arrived at the right room.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Even fate picks its favorites

**Author's Note:**

> Superhero RWBY au time!!!! >:) Let me know if you have any questions about the setting or things you liked down in the comments, I'm pretty good about replying! Enjoy:

She thinks they’re dead.

It’s awful really, to be brought breathless and aching by a ‘probably’ but it’s true. So she sits in the scratchy white covers of her hospital bed and cries and cries and cries- until her eyes are puffy and red, until her throat sobs itself hoarse, until her already bruised ribs burn with the effort of grief.

A nurse tries to console her, but she knows better- she was there, saw the building fall, an explosive sound that tore the air to bloody shreds, the dust that covered every inch, burrowing through her mouth and throat, into her tissues, her skin, her muscle.

Besides, she can hear a reporter slickly count out the death toll from another rooms TV- it’s so many people, more than she can even comprehend. There’s no way her parents made it out, not out of everyone- she’s only eleven and even then, she knows she’s not that lucky.

Another person- a doctor probably, she thinks, his name starting with an A maybe- her mind refuses to focus for more than a few minutes at a time, never mind absorb names- tells her she broke two fingers, bruised quite a bit of her, and has multiple abrasions and cuts all over her body. (And dead parents, one more ailment to the pile, unfortunately terminal)

She gets maybe a few hours to be miserable by herself before a man in a profoundly serious uniform comes in. He has greying black hair and steely blue eyes, a strict posture, and a lack of care that he’s intruding in her room without another adult present.

She doesn’t really know enough to be scared yet, but her arms automatically grip at the cheap fabric surrounding her regardless.

He smiles at her, an empty hollow thing, obviously fake- even to a particularly shell-shocked eleven-year-old.

The conversation that follows is one of the most disconcerting and confusing of her whole life. He tells her that she has powers now- that they were always there, but were merely awakened by her stress- (he says it so neutrally, so calmly, as if she hadn’t watched her world turn into rubble mere hours ago- _stress_ -) He says that she’s one of them- the mutant people- the ones who killed her parents (though he doesn’t say that much out loud) that her abilities will be dangerous without training and supervision. That he would provide her with a place to stay and recuperate, to test her powers and discover herself.

It’s a close thing- she almost says yes, almost just goes with whatever path is put in front of her, too shell-shocked to disagree. It _was_ a good deal- too good to be true almost.

She thinks of her mother’s wiry smile and dry words- to never trust a dog’s tail if you can’t see its teeth- and she opens her stupid mouth.

She asks him what the other options are, a little brave and a little scared and maybe a tad too stubborn for her own good.

The fake smile drops off the man’s face, and he straightens slightly. She tries to do the same, despite her sore body, all too aware of how alone she is, in the room and in the world- with only herself in her corner.

“Untrained mutants are a threat to society.” He says simply, a threat plain and honest in a way he hadn’t been the rest of the conversation, resulting in a cold shudder climbing its way up her back.

He gives her some papers to sign and leaves, and she manages only to stare at them for two minutes and thirty seconds before she gets out of bed, puts on her shoes, and then climbs out the window. (It was a good thing they were on the first floor)

If she’d stayed, maybe she would have gotten to see a different man with a more peaceful recruitment pitch, eyes soft and sad and _tired_ , genuinely trying to help her. But Blake would never know, because she’d hobbled out the parking lot exit before Ozpin had even arrived at the right room.

\---

* * *

That Blake survives those first few months on her own is a miracle- she doesn’t come from Vale, they were only here to protest, so she’s not familiar with the city, or the weather or the people. Her English is fairly good but not by any means perfect, and she’s never had to take care of herself before- never mind while homeless and on the run.

A nice woman with concerned eyes gives her clothing to wear- she slips the black coat and soft sweatpants on over her hospital gown and books it while the kind lady is getting her a glass of water.

She eats a mostly untouched donut in a nearby park that someone left on their plate, sitting appetizingly on a wooden table. She spends the whole time skittishly ducking away from the bees that are trying to have their own sugary meal, gold eyes flitting around nervously, afraid to be caught at any moment. In retrospect, it’s not exactly illegal to eat a donut someone left out in the open, but at eleven- especially after having been threatened by an official looking man in a government role- it is the height of villainy.

She wonders around the park grounds in a daze, trembling slightly despite the warm weather and the fact she was in a coat. The two that are broken hurt fiercely, but she’s not a doctor, so she has no idea how to solve that particular problem other than keep them in the weird looking cast-thing they were already in.

Few people give her weird looks, but most only have to glance at her once before ignoring her, tugging their curious children behind them. It wouldn’t have happened in Menagerie, where it had felt like practically everyone knew her- but she thinks maybe she should be grateful for the anonymity considering her new place in life.

She finds a crab apple tree at one point, sticking out from a person’s yard, tall wooden fence mostly blocking out the neighboring house from the park goer’s prying eyes. She tries to climb the fence, but it’s impossible- not to mention painful- when she can only use one arm, and anything touching her left hand makes her want to scream. The rest of her battered body doesn’t exactly love the exercise either, but it’s a duller pain than her fingers.

Still, she wants those goddamn crabapples.

She finds an abandoned plastic bucket in the long grass, and hauls the surprisingly heavy thing over, painstakingly maneuvering it with her good arm until its under the lowest of the trees branches.

Getting on it is easy enough but staying on it turns out to be a test of her resolve, and not to mention, balance. While it takes her weight surprisingly well, it’s not exactly stable, and will tip dangerously if she leans a little too much one way.

Still, even with a few close calls, she does eventually manage to snag a few of the apples down, shoving them into her coat pockets with an elation she hadn’t realized she was still capable of feeling. It’s just a few sour, potentially out of season crab apples, but she feels like throwing her arms in the air and whooping victoriously. Of course, she doesn’t but it’s a near thing.

Feeling a little better about her chances, she wonders around the rest of the park, not quite knowing what she was looking for. Obviously, she had to find shelter somewhere- she’d been taught from an early age that that was the proper thing to do when trying to survive in the wilderness- (Vale was a city but whatever)- but she didn’t really know what ‘shelter’ even was in this context.

Technically, she could set herself up in the playground nestled in the center of the park’s greenery, but that seemed like a good way to get caught, even if the number of children visiting was lessening as the sun started to go down.

There were a few trees that looked fairly climbable, even with one arm, but she didn’t like her chances of falling and breaking something else. Besides, there wasn’t much protection from the cold that way.

The park was made right beside and probably in tandem with a child-friendly museum, and she thinks it would be kind of cool to live in there if there was a way for her to crawl in and stay unnoticed. There isn’t, but while circling the building she notices that the hedge that wraps around it happens to make a somewhat sturdy barrier. There’s a corner of wall that sticks out in such a way that it makes a small space between it and the hedge, walled in on every side and protected from the elements by a large windowsill above it.

She has to uncomfortably squeeze between the cold brick and the prickly hedge branches to get to the spot, and then crouch when she’s in, because even as a pretty small eleven-year-old, it’s not tall enough for her to stand fully.

The ground is covered mostly in dirt near the museum and a bit of grass sticking out near the hedges, wayward branches tug at her hair, and the shad from the building combined with the slowly sinking sun make it actually kind of cold.

Crouching there alone and hurt should make her miserable but if anything, she feels the opposite- she’s strangely happy in an explosive sort of way she subconsciously knows can’t be normal- a smile that can’t be restrained pulls at her sore cheeks, and she has to repress little inarticulate noises of glee. She’s _safe_! It’s all she can think, over and over- she’s safe, she’s safe, she’s safe! This little place is small and cramped and _hers_ \- hidden and perfect and comfy. She’s never felt more affection than she does now, for the bumpy beige paint covered bricks behind her, for the hard packed ground bellow her- the beautiful windowsill above her that keeps her hunched over like a gargoyle.

It’s almost too much to handle, how amazing and kind and nice it is, to be away from prying eyes or exploding buildings or men in sharp suits. She laughs, a little hysterically, aware somehow of how weird this all is, before promptly bursting into tears.

\---

* * *

She’s slept outside before, in her hammock at home, or camping underneath the stars with her parents- but then she had blankets and a sleeping bag and pillows and thick pajama’s- and if it really got cold, she could always just leave.

There is no ‘just leaving’ for Blake now, and nothing separates her skin from touching the freezing dirt but her coat, sweatpants, and awkwardly tucked in hospital gown- which she is now extremely glad she didn’t take off. There are no socks beneath her shoes, and even though it’s summer, it feels like her toes are getting frostbite anyway.

She’s not sure how long she attempts to fitfully sleep for, it feels like years, but it might have been twenty minutes. Eventually, she has to admit defeat- there’s no way she’s going to get to sleep in the cold like this, ears twitching as she listens to bugs chirp and small animals awaken. And besides, she’s not really sure how healthy it is to even try in the chill like this- she lived in tropical climates before, and her body is definitely not used to protecting itself like this.

She gets up quietly, feeling a bit like a spy or a monster as she slinks through the park at night, Faunus eyes allowing her to comfortably avoid objects in the dark. She needs a blanket, or at the very least a million more layers- but she’s not sure how she’s going to actually _acquire_ these things.

Realistically, she doesn’t expect to find anything in the park, but feels a bit nervous in leaving it anyway, peering out at the suburbs from behind the tree line, fiddling with a part of her cast anxiously. Eventually she concedes that there doesn’t seem to be any suspicious activity, and creeps out, footsteps quiet but also kind of shockingly loud to her sensitive ears in the near silence.

For awhile she sort of just…stumbles around the neighborhood, looking for something to use but coming up empty. Blake’s not sure what she really expected, to miraculously spot a pile of fresh blankets and fluffy socks just randomly laying on someone’s lawn?

She’s barely restraining yawns and her eyes are heavy by the time she finds something.

Up on somebody’s front porch is one of those swing things- the fancy ones that adults like to sit on but won’t let you actually push. And of course, nobody is going to want to sit on the cold metal wires that most of them are actually made up of, so they have a punch of padding and pillow things snuggly fitted atop them.

It’s perfect, but she can barely even step foot onto the lawn before feeling a massive surge of guilt. It’s not hers- taking it would be stealing, probably from some nice family who did nothing wrong. She knows that she needs it, and they don’t, and that ultimately survival trumps stealing, especially non-essential things, but her stomach feels like it’s curling into a tight ball regardless. The man from the hospital had looked at her like she was a bad person- and while leaving before the nice woman could come back wasn’t kind, and taking a few crabapples wasn’t great- they were little things, minor stuff that didn’t matter. This would be knowingly, purposefully, stealing, and didn’t that make her just as bad as the man’s glare had implied she was?

She slinks across the yard cautiously, heart pounding frantically, and tip toes over the porch stairs. Every tiny creek and groan felt like a bullet straight through her soul, and she’d paused every few seconds, both sets of ears straining to hear any movement from inside the house.

Stripping the actual swing of its padded material and blanket was a task stressful enough that Blake felt in danger of a heart attack. It wasn’t a noisy process, but it wasn’t especially stealthy either, and even less so with only one useable hand.

It took much longer than she thought it would, but eventually she had it all off and detached from the now rather bare looking swing. Unfortunately, looking down at it now it was clear that this would be a multiple trip sort of project.

Hesitantly, she bent down and scooped up the heavy blanket with one hand, sort of awkwardly folding it over her shoulder. And then she stood up, maybe too quickly or maybe she was leaning too much or maybe the universe just hated her- but the result was a painfully loud and horribly terrifying squeak.

Blake froze, eyes wide as dinner plates, breath halting jaggedly in her chest- and then she heard movement upstairs.

 _Crap_ she thought frantically- and then, with a little more feeling- _shit_! She had to go right _now_ or she was dead! But she only had the blanket and she wanted all of it, and really, what if she never got a chance after this- where else was she going to find this stuff just casually laying around?!

If she had two arms then she could probably take more, but her stupid broken fingers and her stupidly big cast were in the way and made it impossible to grab anything without wanting to puke out of pain.

She thought a little hysterically about how great it would be if she had some help here- and then-

There was no noise, no poof or pop or lightshow- one moment she was in one place, and in the next she was in two. There were two of her. Two of her thinking at the same time, seeing at the same time, looking at each-other at the same time- and yet they were both her. She was in two places. She was seeing everything from two perspectives and had the memories from both sides flowing in naturally. It didn’t feel weird or hard to focus or even really unnatural. It was all oddly normal if not for the fact that she was looking into her own bruised eyes without the help of a mirror.

She didn’t really even get the time to freak out about it either, seeing as she had, like, four sets of ears listening to someone move around inside the house.

Both Blakes promptly grabbed as much as they could awkwardly carry and snuck away- not exactly running, but definitely not walking either.

She sent one of herself the other way, around the loop of the neighborhood so that if one of them was followed at least the other one would- oh god it was so weird to think about this- she was literally two people now!! What?? Like, obviously she knew she had powers, because the suit dude told her she did, but somehow it hadn’t really seemed real until- well until _this_!

Thankfully, neither versions of herself were accosted, and they both managed to rendezvous at the hideaway at around the same time.

Her little safe home was much more cramped with two people- albeit the same two people (???)- squished in one space. She stared at herself from two angles for a few moments, fully trying to wrap her mind around this freakish experience. It was also kind of novel, in a bizarre way, to actually get to _look_ at herself.

She was more messed up than she thought- sure she was sore all over, but she’d figured it was like when you bumped your elbow and it hurt crazy bad but basically looked the same.

It was not like that. She was nearly covered in bruises and bandages, her hair was knotted and greasy looking, and her eyes were exhausted and manic. Watching herself crouched in the bushes, alone in the middle of the night and panting hard holding stolen blankets and pillows- she truly looked like some wild feral thing.

Wearily, she started to build her new bed against the wall of the building, using a blanket she liked the least as a sort of floor of sorts that would keep the dirt off the rest of them. After that she put all the pillows in a neat as line as she could, keeping them compressed together with a blanket that she wrapped around them multiple times. That would serve as her makeshift mattress. The nicest and thickest of blankets would go next, with a thin weird tarp-like thing she’d found over some of the padding going a top it all. She figured it was probably water-proof- it certainly looked like it might be- and as much as the windowsill above her and the structures surrounding her would keep away the wind and rain, she had to at least plan for if some of it got in.

The whole process took a long time, though not as much as it would have if there hadn’t been two hers, working in an odd sort of perfect tandem.

Speaking of which, she didn’t really know what she was going to do about all that. The makeshift bed she cobbled together barely had enough room for one, but the whole point of getting it was so that she didn’t have to sleep on the cold ground!! It hardly mattered that one of her was warm if she still felt the freezing chill anyway? And if one Blake got hyperthermia would she have to feel that too??

Frowning, she decided to test the whole ‘pain’ thing, and gently pinched her own arm. It felt no different than normal thankfully- it wasn’t like it was multiplied or anything, probably because she wasn’t really two people in two different bodies- it was all Blake, she only had one mind. Or that was what it felt like anyway.

But just to be sure, she pinched herself again, this time using her other body and-

Again, no poof or anything, she just disappeared. Reverting back to one perspective wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but it was kind of a letdown. Seeing things from two sets of eyes had been cool, and a little embarrassingly, it felt like she’d had some company even if the other person was just…also her.

It seemed two heads were better than one. And also, that one version of herself- presumably the body that appeared before- would disappear if injured. That was…an okay power? It wasn’t flight or laser vision or whatever, but it would probably be helpful. Especially now since she could really only depend on herself.

She quirked a tired smile as she settled into her newly acquired bed and closed her eyes.

(She felt like there was a joke in there somewhere)

**Author's Note:**

> (yes the title for this fic and all it's chapters will be named after Megamind quotes lol)


End file.
